Random African Thoughts is a general blog that discusses issues. We post random thoughts and use situations in life to make present living better. We aim to encourage people from all walks of life. The name does not in anyway suggest that it is for just Africans or just about Africa because we all go through the same issues in life. We use the blog as an Advertising tool to promote products and services and also hype events.
Happy reading!!! -- Edwin Oko Lamptey

Thursday, 12 March 2015

SYSTEM MALFUNCTION, HELP!

I made lots of male friends in the university and typical of guys, we engaged in many arguments. Our arguments ranged from intellectual discourses, informative segments but was mostly on women. One line of argument which was both intense and intriguing was the argument on the ability of the Blackman as against other counterparts. I never won this argument even though I was always for the motion that the Blackman was capable of attaining great exploits. My friends on the other divide saw nothing good coming from the Blackman. They were of the view that the Whiteman was "too superior". They passed funny remarks that seemed to "deify" the Whiteman. Some of them passed comments like "any African who did not visit Europe in their lifetime should be disqualified from entering into heaven". I always thought to myself after "losing" the debate that if the university was known to be the highest level of education how come some of it's occupants had such lowly thoughts? I blamed their line of thought on our educational system. I have come to realize that right from our formative years, our educational curriculums do not promote critical thinking and we tend to grow up with it. Our educational system seems to be just repetitive. Even at the tertiary level, the courses are structured and designed to teach us WHAT to think and not HOW to think. It is quite amazing that some facilitators do not inspire us to think outside the box just because that was how they too were taught. That is how come we sometimes have mediocre ways of thinking. We churn out massive numbers of graduates each year and we are still engulfed in our problems. We are not analytical in action and have to "borrow" minds from other places to solve our issues. Our curriculums focus so much on our negative past like slavery and speak very little on our bright and prospective futures. Even more so, we are made to map out routes of slave trade caravans yet we only mention the few but influential black people ( in general) who have contributed immensely to world development like Ella Baker a civil rights activist, Kwame Nkrumah, King Musa l of Mali, Ralph Bunche, Mary Prince, Dr. Patricia Era Bath Trevor Macdonald, Charles Odamtten Easmon and so on. The stories of these great men and women should be taught to inspire us to achieve greater heights.We should start thinking and acting analytically and critically. Our curriculums should encourage critical thinking and problem-solving techniques. We should seek to know the truth and most importantly we should be proud of our own because having a negative way of thinking would never give us a positive and prosperous life in reality. We should develop "hands on" ways of solving our own issues. We should believe in ourselves because we are capable of unthinkable exploits. This is Edwin Oko Lamptey and is a RANDOM AFRICAN THOUGHT. ( Inspired by "What I wasn't taught in school") More at randomafricanthoughts.blogspot.com